Scott Boland’s perfect day sums up Australia’s seamless Ashes series

Fast bowler tore through meek England to win Ashes in rapid fashion but tougher tests await the hosts in Asia next year

At the end of 2002, Australia retained the Ashes inside 10 days. In 2021, the official figure will be 12 days. But that includes a surrender just after lunch on the fourth day in Brisbane, and well before lunch on the third day in Melbourne, scarcely enough in each case to be included as a day’s play.

On Monday, in these pages, we wrote about the extraordinary emergence of Scott Boland. On the second evening, his two wickets before stumps set the match on a path towards an inevitable conclusion. On the third day, Boland realised that conclusion himself, taking four more wickets to round out an astonishing second innings on debut, finishing with six wickets for seven runs. The second Indigenous man to play Test cricket for Australia won the Johnny Mullagh medal named for his long-ago predecessor, Unaarrimin, in an extraordinary moment of symbolic and practical significance.